Death and Taxes

It was United States founding father, Benjamin Franklin, that once spoke what is now an oft-used phrase about impermanence — “…in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

It was the 5th century BC Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, that spoke another oft-used phrase about change — “the only thing constant is change.”

I’ve been thinking about these two statements a lot lately. Personally, checking my own ability to adapt. With my 19 year-old son, encouraging him in some movements in his life. With my designs for groups convening that I know need to go to a place of deeper learning — “relationship to uncertainty” is a doorway.

Life is uncertain. Inherently. Despite any of our heroic, societal efforts to mask the not-knowns. You can’t get around it. Like death and taxes.

What’s called for in us is the ability to be in change (yes, about now would be good to offer the qualifier, “do as I say, not as I do”). Learning to be with impermanence and a continued change is a life-long practice. No finish line. Never done. Learn some in our teens. Some in our 20s. And 30s. And on. And on.

Learning to be fluid and adaptive is a massively good skill. Doing that from a clear enough sense of who any of us are (that doesn’t change so readily) — that’s gold!

For me, one of those orientations I learned from my grandmothers, is that I’m a learner. There is always learning to do. That statement grounds me to be able to shift into the multiplicity of environments that I learn in. Now I’m learning as a father. Now I’m learning working with educators. Now I’m learning as I offer a workshop. Now I’m learning as I grieve a pending loss of my dog. Now I’m learning as I live in Utah. Now I’m learning as I live in Seattle.

I remain the learner. The place or the topics that I learn in doesn’t remain. My ability most needed is being fluid.

Amidst impermanence. Amidst change.

Gold.

 

Respectful Disagreement

My friend Amanda Fenton, with whom I’m hosting The Circle Way practicum in a week, wrote recently about some of her learnings on respectful disagreement.

I love it that Amanda takes on the issue of consensus amidst dialogic practice. Just because we talk, and listen, in good ways, doesn’t mean that we will agree or get our way. But it’s different to have that disagreement with real opportunity to be heard than to have disagreement “resolved” with imposition of power.

I think what happens in the best of processes, is that we welcome an understanding to come forward, and in so doing, we’ve built or improved fundamental relationship that in fact can stand in integrity with disagreement.

Amanda’s post is worth a read. Give it a go.

The Need To Tell Our Stories

It is fundamentally human to do so. Tell our stories that is.

It is social glue — with more than 140 characters or two short paragraphs. It is the way that we share experience. “Tell us about your weekend. What’s been happening with your family? Your job? Your garden? Did you watch last night’s episode?”

Or, it was (I would say is) part of ceremony. “Tell us what you have seen. Tell us of the great beyond.” I can imagine those times sitting round the fire. Listening as if life depended on it.

Ah, there it is — perhaps life depends on it, this telling of our stories, and this listening to others tell their stories. Not just social nicety, though I like that too. Nothing wrong with a passing remark about last nights’ ball game. Not just chit chat, filler before moving to the next moment of isolation. Smile. Check.

Our lives depend on the stories we tell ourselves and each other. It takes friends, company, good listeners, and good challengers to help make sense of them. I’m introverted enough to not always want to be out loud. But at some point, our lives our meant to be lived in some community. It is where sense-making is tested, where systems of imagination scale.

In ten days I will be hosting The Circle Way Practicum with a friend and colleague that I really respect — Amanda Fenton. Together we will host a group of 22 people over six days to develop the ability and recall the memory of telling our stories. We will work in large group and in smaller groups of sixish. We will invoke with others a basic process for listening, for presensing, for letting go, and for calling forth — story. “What’s it like to be you? What has your attention? What is important to you? Is there a crossroads you feel you are at?”

With minimal structure, a clear purpose, a real curiosity, and the invocation of story, I believe we can change the world. Grow it back to one that practices engagement and story, evolving the edges of who we are and what we dream possible.

Thank you Charles LaFond, a great story inviter and teller, for inspiring this post.

The Open Road

Open Road

I have grown up and lived all of my life in the western part of North America. The first half was in Canada. Central Alberta. Edmonton. Edmonton is a prairie city. The city is big enough. But to get from that prairie city to another, or to the mountains of southeast Alberta and British Columbia, it took some driving. There was open road.

The second half of my life I’ve lived in Utah, and increasingly, Seattle. Lindon is bordered by the Wasatch Mountains on the east. A giant valley and the Oquirrh mountains on the west. I’ve been able to drive, many times, travel open roads, all the way down to San Diego, and all the way north to Edmonton. Twelve hours to the south. As many as 19 hours to the north.

I love the open road.

When I’m alone, I think. I sing. I talk out loud to myself. I wonder. I get sparks of ideas. It’s a kind of meditation time. When I’m with others, the same thing happens (but perhaps with a bit less singing). We think. We talk. We wonder. We laugh.

I took the above picture in southern Montana. It’s the open road that I’m on today. I’m following I-15 up to Butte, then I-90over to Missoula. Montana is known for it’s big skies. They are awesome. Breath-taking. Lot’s of time to think. Lots of time to wonder. Lots of time to be held by the big sky.

It’s not open road that I need every day. But there are some days when it feels utterly and gratefully essential.

Thanks Montana, and your lovely big skies.